


You're Safe Now

by CobaltPhosphene



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: BUT THERE IS HORROR IN THE CHOICE OF GRANOLA BARS, Gen, Non-graphic traumatic flashback, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, blasphemy of granola bars, but friendship prevails, it's okay though they have coffee and granola bars, mention of medical child abuse, mention of nonconsensual drug use, namely oatmeal raisin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltPhosphene/pseuds/CobaltPhosphene
Summary: Staci gets to know the new rookie on the force a bit better, namely that 1) the rookie sleep walks, 2) has intrusive nightmares, and 3) can cook.Also seems to be kind of an alright guy who's been through shit. Maybe Rook'll stick around once his probation period's over, which wouldn't be so bad in Staci's opinion, but note to self: don't let the rookie fall asleep on the rec room couch ever again.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	You're Safe Now

Staci’s bored. Which is a nice change, because it’s been busy as hell with the holidays rolling through like Hurk Jr. deciding to take a steam roller for a joy ride (again) and christening it “the Hurkulator 9000.″ With spray paint.  
  
That’d been a messy day. How the man managed to avoid doing time in jail was a mystery, but then again: this was Hope County, home of the weird.  
  
The downside of being bored was that it was really, _really_ tempting to fall asleep. Staci couldn’t fall asleep now though, it was almost the end of his shift, almost time to go home and then he could collapse into bed and play dead to the world for a blissful day of sleep.  
  
A blissful day, because he was currently working graveyard shift with the new rookie.  
  
Not going to lie, Rook was kind of a weirdo. Joey had smacked Staci for saying so to her—it’d been in private though! He’d made sure the new guy wasn’t around to hear ‘em, Jesus. Yeah, Staci knew he was being kind of hard on the guy, but the guy was kind of…jumpy. Selectively jumpy. _Weirdly_ jumpy.  
  
Like, not at all surprised if someone showed up from around the corner jumpy, more like…jumpy when talking to people sometimes. Socially jumpy.  
  
Specifically, socially jumpy around him, Joey, Whitehorse, and perhaps a few others around town…despite not being from this area. Dude was from Georgia, down south…which was also kind of a tie-in weirdness given the local doomsday religious cult Hope County was home to, now, sadly. The Seeds had come from Georgia, so…Rook showing up coming from the same home state, looking just like the self-proclaimed prophet? Yeah. That was either deeply unfortunate luck or intentional choice there.  
  
But the probie had a rather particularly keen skill at vanishing into thin air right before anyone even remotely associated with the cult turned up.  
  
It was actually rather impressive, and had Staci wondering where the hell the guy _hid_ sometimes, and how he managed to disappear so damn quietly.  
  
So, while the social jumpiness might have something to do with looking like the local loony cult leader admittedly, but it did raise the question of why Rook wasn’t putting in a transfer right away.  
  
That’d certainly been a weird day, when Earl had introduced Joshua to the rest of the department. Staci was sure Earl had asked at least once if not twice if Rook was sure he wanted to transfer once he’d seen the man’s picture in his file, informing the potential new transfer about the situation.  
  
Rook had apparently thought about it for a long while, and said he wanted to try working in Hope County anyway, if they’d have him—and the department sorely needed more people, they were understaffed as it was. Hell, Whitehorse had accepted Staci too—not that there was anything _wrong_ with Staci. Just, Staci was a city boy, and Hope County was most certainly NOT that.  
  
It was about as far as you could get from a proper city without it being an empty stretch of highway, honestly. Hell, they even had a small, abandoned ghost town here…freaky as that was. Something to do with the history back during some mining age or something. He couldn’t remember. Fuck, that was going to bug him if he didn’t look it back up, Staci groused.  
  
Still, it was more than middle of nowhere with this potential weirdery of either a lookalike…or an unexpected relative. Even understaffed, Staci wasn’t sure why Earl had said yes.  
  
Perhaps he thought Rook would be useful. Whitehorse was calculating, taking the long view of things, but not manipulative, and not willing to put people, _his_ people, in harm’s way without good reason.  
  
The Seeds were definitely brewing up trouble, had already _been_ trouble both directly and by fucking proxy with their goddamned followers.  
  
Maybe Whitehorse thought Rook would be a possible ace in the hole…or would seed doubt in the Project’s ranks if or when the truth came to light?  
  
No…no, that didn’t fit Whitehorse’s M.O.  
  
…guess the guy had been earnest enough for Whitehorse to take a chance on him then. That’d work on him. Joey too—she was a bit more protective of him than Staci would’ve expected even for a rookie on the force.  
  
Danny…was the most skeptical of them, even compared to Staci.  
  
But Danny was kind of a prick. A rules-bound prick, but a prick none the less. Staci knew Danny would be withholding judgment until he’d seen more of Rook in action and conduct. Specifically, how much of a workaholic the newbie was, how much he respected the rules, if he was a fellow neat freak, how good his aim was, and the quality of his character.  
  
Yeah, Danny was a judgemental prick, but it wasn’t a bad list…for an obsessive compulsive. Nobody should be that neat at their desk or have a semi-permanent smell of wood polish floating about it.  
  
Staci was of the opinion Rook was a write-off—or he would be, if Staci wasn’t also likely saddled with helping Rook learn to take the training wheels off. …eh it wouldn’t be that bad, training new officers could be fun at times. They’d be playing pass-around but it’d likely help round Rook out, while making sure he didn’t get indoctrinated with Danny’s vengefully personal grudge against dust and disorder. There could only be one, for Staci’s sanity. Yes, it was great that Danny was always on point and made sure everything else was, but the man could stand to take it down a notch.  
  
None of them wanted more trouble with the Peggies than was needed though, or to have them snooping about.  
  
It’d been a bit of a devil’s deal there, in Staci’s opinion: get some sorely needed help in a time when trouble was festering, but said help might be a wild card.  
  
Assuming of course Rook wasn’t some long-lost relative of the Seeds out to do a crazy and reconnect with the family and infiltrate the police force…but that’d be crazy talk.  
  
But they were in Hope County, which Staci had learned was a hotbed for weird shit, and crazy was the baseline normal. So who fucking knew.  
  
The guy wasn’t really _trying_ to convince anyone he wasn’t suspicious by being normal…which, actually worked in his favor, now that Staci thought about it. Was that reverse psychology? It seemed like a lot of work to act as, well, _weird_ as Rook kind of was. It wasn’t really overt or hammed up, just…little things. That didn’t seem likely to be something a person would put on as an act.  
  
Ah, fuck. Intrigue was too much work to deal with, but deal with it they had to. Whitehorse had made the choice to accept Rook, so accept Rook they did.  
  
And Whitehorse had also made sure they were all on the same page with the official department line of keeping Rook’s unfortunate similarities on the down low. Hell even Nancy had agreed, surprisingly enough, looking wide-eyed enough Staci almost thought her eyeballs would just fall out of her head.  
  
How, exactly, a baseball cap and glasses were going to throw people off from noticing that they had a walking double of Joseph Fucking Seed in their ranks was beyond Staci.  
  
What was even more out-fucking-rageous was that _it was fucking working._  
  
Nobody around town had mentioned it, there was _**no**_ gossip about it, it was like…like…like no one had even _**noticed**_ Rook’s face yet?  
  
It made Staci wonder if _he_ was going fucking crazy. Crazy with boredom in this backwater town. God he needed to get out and find someone new to hang with, find something more to _do_ on his time off. Someone to hit on would be nice, but the city-slicker charm had worn off after a while, and there weren’t a lot of ladies looking for regular one-night-stands—and Staci most certainly wasn’t looking for a relationship, even a friends-with-benefits one. Those tended to escalate far too often, in his opinion. No, thank you. If he wanted to pursue a serious relationship, he would say so at the beginning. Hooking up was hooking up, serious dating was serious dating.  
  
Ugh. He probably should see if the rookie wanted to hang out then, since he was a fresh face. Maybe Rook would be more relaxed off-duty with a beer or two in his system.  
  
Rook worked hard, at least, pulling his own weight while learning how to get his feet under him. That’d please Danny certainly—all the deputies had been harboring concerns the new guy might be thinking Hope was an easy job with not much going on. Which it was sometimes, just those were the very, very rare occasional blips rather than the day to day norm.  
  
Fuck it, fine, the rookie was doing alright in Staci’s book. So far. It was early yet still, a few months in, and it’d be a year before they all settled into accepting Rook as one of their own, but…well, it was nice to have a hair’s worth of breathing room more with another member of the team present. And a gopher to get coffee and doughnuts—he was glad _he_ wasn’t the one getting them all the time now. Well. _Most_ of the time.  
  
Fuck, they ran out of doughnuts near the beginning of the shift, but there were granola bars and there’d be coffee in the break room, and he needed something to keep him on his feet until his second (or in this case more like fifth) wind hit. Was it a shitty idea right before he could go home? Yeah. But he wanted to drive home, not drive headfirst into a ditch. Just a small coffee then. And one of those chocolate chip granola bars.  
  
Staci stood up with a groan, feeling his bones creak way more loudly than they should’ve at his age—he wasn’t even fucking twenty five yet, God damn. That was an effect of an all-nighter with over time though. Rolling his shoulders as he walked, he rounded the corner, past the bulletin board—and just about walked smack into the new guy. Just about made Staci jump, if he’d had the energy to do so. Too much burn out, not enough coffee for that right now though.  
  
“Jesus fucking Christ, Rook. You scared the shit out of me just about.” Staci said, grumbling more than he likely should’ve. It wasn’t the other man’s fault…just, Staci hadn’t heard him _coming_ at all. No footsteps, no nothing.  
  
…Staci squinted.  
  
Rook’s head was tilted forward a bit, his eyes shut, now that Staci actually was looking.  
  
Was. Was Rook _asleep?_ Was Rook a fucking _sleepwalker?_ …that was actually kind of hilarious. Or it would be, if Staci wasn’t dead on his feet. If anything he was a bit illogically envious that the man could walk and sleep at the same time. And that was a sign Staci definitely needed to rest. God.  
  
Staci heaved a sigh, annoyed, but really just too tired to deal with bullshit of any kind right now. He reached out and gave Rook’s cheek a quick series of not-quite-gentle smacks. “Wakey wakey, probie, you’re not allowed to sleep on duty even if you can fucking walk and catch forty winks at the same time. Come on now. Raise-y daisy.”  
  
Any other time, Staci would’ve considered pranking the other man with this. Grabbing a sharpie and drawing some cartoony dicks and squigglies and whatever else he felt like doodling on his coworker’s face. Well. There’d be other times. Just he wasn’t in the mood right now.  
  
What he hadn’t expected was for Rook to snap awake with a sharp intake of breath, eyes wide and wild, hands a blur as he reached up to grab Staci’s upraised arm hard enough for the bones to creak, his other hand clamped to Staci’s other shoulder as he bared his teeth. Staci _had_ flinched and had been bringing his other hand up to try to block, but Joshua had just _reacted._ Much faster than Staci would’ve expected from a sleep-deprived young rookie with no previous history in martial training, _especially_ upon waking up.  
  
That was kind of fucking freaky and he was deeply, immediately concerned he was in deep shit. He’d seen this kind of reaction before, just he hadn’t _expected_ it from Rook.  
  
He hadn’t expected Rook to look at him with what Staci could not call anything other than killing intent for a split second there, only to rein it in in the same instance while processing it.  
  
Then Rook just stood there, holding onto Staci, breathing harsh and fast, grip easing ever so slowly, the snarl upon his face relaxing into a glassy, wide-eyed looking around. Joshua’s eyes settled on the bulletin board beside them, and Staci felt the other man’s grip tighten.  
  
Staci had seen this before, had dealt with enough people with PTSD and heard about it from the veterans at the previous district to recognize what was going on. He reached up and rested his hand on the other man’s bicep, carefully, lightly, trying to get his attention without startling him.  
  
“Rook. Rook, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay,” Staci said, pitching his voice low and calm, and oh boy if it wasn’t unsettling to see Joshua’s head snap to focus on him, blue eyes boring into Staci’s soul with enough intensity to make Staci falter for a moment under the other man’s gaze.  
  
“We need to get out of here,” Joshua said, words hurried and quiet and urgent, and edge to them that spoke of coiled tension and fear, deep south accent laying it on thick with that rough edge that came from having just woken up. Combined, it made Staci actually seriously question if there _was_ a threat he didn’t know about present. “I’m not leaving you behind, you’ve got to get out and somewhere _safe,_ Pratt. You have to, understand?”  
  
…No fucking wonder people followed the Seeds, damn. It was sort of weirdly touching that Joshua 1) recognized him during what seemed to be either a bout of PTSD or as the more uncharitable part of Staci’s brain suggested a bout of crazy, and 2) Rook seemed to actually genuinely be… _very concerned_ about Staci’s continued well being.  
  
Damn.  
  
Staci withheld a split-second sigh, and made a mental note that he had to buy this guy a drink some time in the future. And be a little bit less of an ass and more…well, _friendly_ perhaps. He hadn’t been a total ass to Rook, but he hadn’t been terribly friendly either, waiting to see if the new guy would stick around and make it through to being a regular or not. That was of course if this didn’t turn up to be a reveal of some factor that disqualified Rook from serving as a deputy. Fuck, he had to check for that as a senior officer here. First things first though, he needed to focus on calming Rook down and getting him grounded and remembering where they were.  
  
“Rook…Rook, you’re safe. We’re safe,” He said, trying to soothe the other man and get him his bearings, out of the nightmare or whatever it was that had set Rook off like that. Nightmare, he was sure. “We’re here in the Hope County Sheriff’s Department, here in Fall’s End, it’s 6:45am on a Thursday, we’re going to be off shift in a little over an hour, and Joey’s going to come in with Danny to relieve us and handle whatever new noise complaint related crap the Drubmans will drum up with fireworks and such,” He was just rambling, adding in the date and year and other mundane details to help with orienting oneself in time and space and contex. He was keeping it all slow and easy, keeping his eyes on Joshua as he continued talking like there wasn’t anything to worry about, that they were safe, because they _were._ Staci watched as the tension drained slowly from Rook’s face, his eyes came into focus and actually seemed to _see_ where they were, recognition filtering in slowly. He felt Joshua’s grip on his shoulder and arm loosening again, all the way this time until there was no pressure applied, and Staci could lower his upraised hand to rest it on the side of Joshua’s other arm.  
  
“You’re safe now. Okay?” Staci asked, trying to get Joshua to recognize reality over the traumatic flashback he seemed to be in…or nightmare, or whatever it was. The method didn’t change…fuck Staci wasn’t as well-read on this as he needed to be. “Deep breaths now.”  
  
“…Okay,” Joshua said, his breathing finally slowing down, his expression finally looking like he was all _there_ , here, now. “Okay.”  
  
He looked shaken. But there.  
  
“You alright, Rook?”  
  
“Yeah…yeah. I’m sorry, I…”  
  
“Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s go get a coffee then, alright?” It was as much getting Rook something warm to drink as it was because Staci wanted one too. Food and warm drinks helped people calm down, and was one of his go-to solutions. Great way to bribe himself too when he was in a mood, like right now. Fuck sleep deprivation, man.  
  
…Fuck that was probably part of all this with the probie too.  
  
Joshua nodded, and the two of them turned to head back down the hall to the break room.  
  
“Here, you get the coffee poured, and I’ll grab us some granola bars. You like chocolate? Or you want oatmeal raisin?”  
  
“Oatmeal raisin.” Rook said, pulling out a pair of cups from the dish rack to check if they were dry, before proceeding to starting filling the first one.  
  
Staci just gave Rook an incredulous look from where he was going through an overhead cabinet. Who chose oatmeal raisin over chocolate? “Seriously?”  
  
Fuck. That came out of his mouth before he thought better of it.  
  
Rook just gave him an amused squint. “Hey I _like_ chocolate but that’s shitty chocolate that’s all sugar and next to no chocolate flavor in the brand we get here at the station. I find the oatmeal raisin one still too sweet, but I’ll eat em anyway if there’s nothing else. The caramel apple flavor’s better, but we’re all out unless I’m mistaken, aren’t we?”  
  
“Yeah, Hudson runs through those super quick, you gotta horde some in your desk if you want any at the end of the month before restock day. Still, oatmeal raisin?” Staci wrinkled his nose with an openly judgemental look as he handed the offending granola bar over.  
  
“Pay me the funds we use for these, and I can make them better and tastier, with less crap in them,” Joshua said, taking the offered bar to waggle it pointedly at Staci before turning to hand over one of the cups of coffee.  
  
“No shit?” Staci asked, genuinely interested. Better food was always a plus in his book.  
  
“Yeah man, I love cooking.”  
  
Well that was certainly a potential plus to keeping the probie around—if he passed muster. Rook was looking calm now at least, pulling out the milk carton from the fridge to add a healthy amount to his cup. That was a quick bounce back, damn. Promising though…if still a bit haunting to think of how Rook had looked at him at first.  
  
Hm. Maybe Rook was just hiding it real well. Keeping busy, as it were.  
  
“Huh. I’ll bring it up with Whitehorse and run it by the others so they’re in the loop, if you really wanna do that on the regular. If you don’t, let us know ahead of time—Hudson deprived of snacks is a bad time for all. Pass the milk?”  
  
“Yeah I stress bake from time to time, this works out nicely,” Joshua said, handing the carton over.  
  
“Hm. You get stressed like earlier a lot, probie?” Staci asked, glancing at his coworker sidelong while stirring in his own sugar and milk.  
  
He saw how Joshua’s expression shifted slightly, lips thinning into an almost-frown.  
  
“Ah. That. Yeah I…get nightmares a lot. Doesn’t fuck with my sleep quality, just I’m fucky to wake up sometimes and need a moment.”  
  
Staci could tell Joshua knew the score here, and what the intent was for this line of questioning. He still had to ask, though, for the department’s sake and Rook’s own sake. If Rook wasn’t fit for the job, he was a danger to himself and the others in the department.  
  
“Did something happen? That looked like a PTSD flashback you were stuck in.” No point in beating about the bush, Staci reasoned. Particularly since he had all the diplomacy of a hungry narwhal right now.  
  
Rook shook his head though, not looking at Staci, holding his cup while appearing lost in thought. “No. Nothing happened. Just bad dreams.”  
  
Staci snorted, pausing mid-air in lifting his coffee up for a sip. “Yeah and I’m the Queen of England.”  
  
Joshua actually laughed a small surprised noise at that, turning to look at Staci with a cheeky grin. “I didn’t realize I was in the presence of royalty! Forgive my lack of manners, _your highness.”  
  
_Alright, he kind of liked this probie. Particularly when he was less of a bundle of nerves. The man was solid enough on the job while being professional, but behind the scenes...had been less smooth. The probie seemed to flounder a bit without a proper “script” to follow. But in this instance? The rookie might’ve hit his stride. It was making Staci smile out of reflex, and fuck he actually was feeling a bit less crabby over all this right now. That was uncharitable, Staci knew, but he was fucking tired. Joshua too, he knew.  
  
Joshua’s smile slid back to a more attentive, neutral expression. As much as one could, with dark shadows under one’s eyes. Fuck, Staci must’ve had a matching set too, it was practically part of the uniform during the holidays.  
  
“But I’m serious. I haven’t actually been in a violently traumatic experience or such. Some bullying as a kid, and…well, being illegally institutionalized, but it was done without a proper diagnosis from a clinician and was a complete hoax by the parties involved.”  
  
Staci almost choked on the sip of his coffee. “Say _what_ now?” He’d followed with the being bullied part, because what kids didn’t get bullied, but the institutionalization part was a new one as far as stories went. “Institutionalized as in like in a mental hospital?”  
  
“Yeah. It was fucked. They committed a bunch of foster kids with made up diagnoses and wanted to run drug trials on them to prove efficacy with cooked test results. It all came to light after a couple of years. Corrupt practices, illegal human experimentation, inhumane treatment, kidnapping and criminal fraud charges everywhere, from what I hear.”  
  
“Jesus.”  
  
“Yeah. The courts sealed it and withheld our names because we were all minors, the other kids and I, but you might’ve heard of it like, a little under a decade ago? Was a bit of a flurry in the newspapers apparently.”  
  
“Oh fuck, maybe?” Staci vaguely recalled some mention of that scandal, now that Joshua mentioned it. Probably from a newspaper headline at a gas station or corner store, fuck if he could recall which one.  
  
That was weird, recalling reading about something he as a teenager had read about in passing as a tragic but impersonal event, and now standing before someone who it had affected both deeply and personally.  
  
He was perhaps learning a little bit more about empathy in this moment than he cared to, right now.  
  
“So, you’re saying that _wasn’t_ fucking traumatic?” Staci asked, raising an eyebrow with a head tilt to go with it to indicate he was _very_ skeptical that someone could skate through that kind of experience without coming out a little banged up mentally or otherwise. Some people could, he knew, and it varied from person to person, but the odds were against that he figured.  
  
Tonight was certainly an interesting night for gossip though.  
  
“Oh it was, I hate being locked up and watched, and drugged against my will until I’m a catatonic ball huddled in the corner quite a lot. Don’t like being questioned while on drugs either, in hindsight. Not really stuff I expect to encounter in any line of work though, including law enforcement. Locking others up doesn’t bother me, so long as it’s legal and ethical and such.” Those first words were light, as if trying to pass the matter off as a bit of a joke. It didn’t quite land. Joshua shrugged apparently trying to look casual about it, but the motion was a bit stiff and jerky, and he glanced down, hesitating while looking like he wanted to say a bit more.  
  
So Staci waited.  
  
In retrospect, the nicer thing to do would’ve been to reassure Rook, but well, that was more Joey-intuition than Staci-intuition, particularly right now. He’d be supportive in a minute, his sleep-deprived brain needed a bit longer to remember to do things.  
  
Joshua clearly needed a moment to organize his thoughts on what to say, which Staci was fine with, leaning against the counter to one side as he took a sip of his coffee in the meantime.  
  
“…the physician and psychologist who looked me over afterwards said I was fine, so I just…” Another abrupt little shrug and an accompanying shake of the head, before Joshua looked at Staci. “… ** _I_** believe I’m sane, I just…still have the urge to say I’m not crazy, which I know sounds bad.”  
  
“…yeah that line never sounds great coming from a potential coworker or someone you have to spend more than the next five seconds with there, rookie,” Staci pointed out dryly. But hoo boy, Joshua…probably got a pass on that after being falsely labeled as in need of medication. “And for the record? Having a mental illness or something doesn’t make a person crazy. They need help, and we are sometimes the ones who need to help them get to the right people who _can_ help them, medical professionals or otherwise.”  
  
Well, with that backstory reveal, Staci was inclined to cut Rook some slack on the weirdery, provided Rook managed to get his feet under him in good time. Rattled, but tentatively sound enough so far as early impressions went for what the man had been through.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah I know just…they treated _us_ like we were crazy. To be disregarded, like we didn’t have an ounce of common sense between us all. They didn’t listen. Maybe it was also because we were kids,” Joshua said, looking away, “kids that no one cared about if we went missing.”  
  
“And that’s fucking wrong by any moral standard. Nobody should fuck up kids like that.” Staci said, followed by another sip. Humans sometimes were absolute assholes, but that was nothing new as a revelation to Staci. He’d certainly seen enough of that growing up. HE glanced down at his cup, noting that it was half empty already and commented offhand, “God I can’t believe we’re having a heart to heart chat at seven in the morning, after a full night shift, and after over time. Fuck, man.”  
  
Joshua breathed a laugh, but didn’t look at Staci.  
  
…right, he wasn’t reciprocating much was he. Fuck. Time to be a bit more heart-baringly friendly then. “And I agree, you’re not crazy. You seem perfectly sane so far, questionable granola bar tastes aside,—”  
  
That got Staci a proper laugh from Rook then, and he smiled in his little moment of social victory. Ah, and Joshua was back to looking him in the eye again. Good, good, they were restoring proper “friendship potential” connections.  
  
…ugh, Staci was trying to be _friendly._ It was too damn early for this. Or late, depending on point of view.  
  
Continuing, he said, “—and frankly the shit you’ve been through sounds real rough. I’m not the most eloquent guy even at the best of times let alone at the end of a long night shift, but you seem alright in my book. If you ever want to, I don’t know, talk and have a drink about it, honestly Joey’s the better choice for that but hit me up if you need it.”  
  
Eh, close enough. He wasn’t giving out details of his life, it just…didn’t fit the flow of what he said? But maybe another time. Was he leaving Rook hanging with awkward did-I-overshare-feelings? …GOD being nice was hard. But worth the effort, yes. He just wanted to grumble a bit about it right now.  
  
“We can swap shitty childhood stories or something sometime with enough beers or something. After we’ve both slept, I can’t be fucking bothered to do serious story time with heavy shit right now. No offense,” He added as an afterthought because that might’ve come off as abrasive. “I’m fine with listening in moments like this if you’re okay with a low level of emotional response and engagement, but I’m gonna be snarky.”  
  
“Oh so that’s just you in general, not because oatmeal raisin granola bars offended you in particular then,” Joshua said, looking rather amused at that point.  
  
“Hey, those are shitty granola bars, Rook. I just can’t believe you _like_ them.”  
  
“I _tolerate_ them, Pratt. I know good fare from shitty fare, and good fare ain’t that. Also, you can call my Joshua you know.”  
  
“Staci, then.” He offered a hand as…he didn’t fucking know, sleep-deprivation-addled reflex to what his tired brain thought of as an introduction of sorts? They’d been introduced when Joshua had first showed up of course, and shaken hands then, but it’d been a perfunctory greeting. This was a more _welcome to the club house_ kind of greeting, or something. Fuck, fine, Staci was accepting Rook as one of theirs more officially-ish.  
  
Joshua was either too tired or was more of an accepting sort, taking Staci’s hand and giving it a shake. “I’ll buy you a drink sometime then, after we’ve both slept some. You wanna swing by my place later this week to help test out homemade granola bar flavors?”  
  
“Sure man, where d’you live?” Staci asked, letting go of the other’s hand to rip open his granola bar with the one hand and his teeth, before taking a bite.  
  
“I rent a place outside of town, I’ll text you the address and directions?” Joshua offered.  
  
“Yeah, alright. Stay awake until you get home then, probie, and don’t fall asleep on the way back.” Staci said, raising his half-eaten granola bar in a mock-salute that Joshua responded to in kind with his coffee cup as Staci headed back to his desk with what remained of his own coffee. It was tempting to get another cup, but he needed to sleep sooner rather than later once his shift was over, and the end was in sight.  
  
Fuck, guess they might be becoming friends then after all.  
  
…well, that wasn’t such a bad thing, now was it.  
  
Hell, maybe it’d work out. It wasn’t like he was overbooked with friendships galore around here in Hope, after all. Rook’s backstory seemed kinda heavy on shitty things that’d happened to him, but, well…why not. Staci was willing to give it a go if Joshua was. Plus it wasn’t like Staci himself had come from a peerless background either. He took another sip of his coffee and a second bite of the granola bar.  
  
…hm, maybe Joshua had a point. Maybe these _were_ too sugar-heavy on the flavor instead of a more chocolate-rich taste, now that he was paying attention.  
  
Fuck. Now he couldn’t fucking un-taste that cheap-mass-produced-granola-bar flavor.  
  
He shoved the rest of the bar into his mouth grouchily, chewing on it with a bit of spiteful prejudice. At least there wasn’t much left of this one, for what consolation that was worth. Staci really fucking hoped they got better granola bars now, either by Joshua baking them or a different brand, because there went his bland, non-attentive, mindless enjoyment of one shitty junk food snack masquerading as a healthier snack.  
  
God fucking damn it.

**Author's Note:**

> Joshua's unfortunate experience is loosely inspired around the Duplessis Orphans. Set in the verse of "A Cold And Broken Hallelujah" about two years before the start of the events in that fic and the in-game timeline of Far Cry 5. Minor backstory spoilers, but nothing major. We'll see some of this in Joshua's retelling at some point in the main fic, down the line. xD Thank you to Amistrio on tumblr for the prompt! :D ♥ The prompt was "You're safe now," with the deputy, so I went ahead and picked Joshua and Staci to show how their friendship started. :3


End file.
